


A Proper Burial

by t0talcha0s



Category: BioShock
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6239206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0talcha0s/pseuds/t0talcha0s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rapture was a tomb, but it just wasn't a good enough burial for a woman like Julie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Proper Burial

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InsaneandBloody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneandBloody/gifts).



> S/o to Insaneandbloody for being sweet enough to listen to my incoherent rambles about these two.

Rapture had a cemetery. It was small, placed in a remote part of Arcadia with overgrown weeds covering most of the tombstones. The inscriptions were barely legible and the entire idea of a cemetery in Rapture was a bad one. It simply came down to logistics, burials at sea and cremations were so much cheaper and Rapture simply didn't have the space to bury its citizens.

In the end though, Rapture became one large, decrepit mausoleum in and of itself. Corpses rotted in the street and passers-by barely batted an eye at them. The dead strewn upon the ground in the same place they died. It didn't seem right. Brigid had done quite some ruminating on the topic of right and wrong. Her morals were loose and she was plenty aware of it. But leaving an innocent women sprawled dead and pathetic on the floor of her lab just wasn't acceptable. Maybe she felt so strongly because it was her, because it was Julie, and she knew better then anyone else that Julie deserved so much more. 

_Not that you possess any credibility when it comes to the topic of treating Julie well._ Brigid thought bitterly, but it was entirely too late to apologize, Julie was dead.

The wall of Brigid's safe house was cold against her hand as she steadied herself from the dizzying reality. Julie died without seeing her life's work come to fruition, Julie died without hearing Brigid apologize, Julie died.

Brigid still didn't know what to call what they had, if it was romantic or platonic or some third stranger option. Brigid remembered finding Julie at one of Cohen's parties, she had been forced to attend because Cohen was using a prototype plasmid in an art exhibition and it was good press if the employees of Fontaine Futuristics were there to endorse it. Brigid was by the bar trying to drown Gil Alexander's painfully sober rambling in vodka and whiskey. Julie stepped right up next to her and ordered one of the same, completely ignoring Gil, and gave Brigid a smile and a, 

_"Hey sweetheart."_ Brigid remembered every stupid nickname Julie had used for her: sweetheart, doll, sugar, baby, Bridge, any number of creative and increasingly odd monikers. Brigid remembered going out for coffee and cocktails, remembered begrudging walls trough Arcadia, remembered meeting in each other's labs to help with work or bother the other, remembered the way Julie's skin felt beneath her hands, remembered a lab coat embroidered with 'Julie Langford: Botanist' left at her apartment, and remembered wearing the lab coat the next day. Julie had been too good for her, all adoring glances and humorous antics and never pressing too hard but rejoicing every one of Brigid's rare smiles. 

Brigid remembered the feel of Frank Fontaine's lips on her neck, his hands on her body, his words ringing through her ears, Brigid remembered making a massive mistake. 

She held a hand tight to her chest, felt her heart beat out of time and irregularly, tried to complete a breath without it shuddering. She hadn't meant to hurt Julie with her mistake, she could tell Julie didn't want to believe it was true, but the fully broken hearted, betrayed way Julie spat out the words, 

_"You fucked Frank Fontaine?"_ Conveyed to Brigid just how massive her mistake was. An even bigger mistake was her last words to Julie being, 

_"Yes, I did."_ She had offered no explanation, didn't try to justify what she'd done as Julie angrily scrubbed her eyes. Brigid knew she didn't deserve her tears. But none of that mattered anymore  
Julie was dead, sprawled flat on the floor of her lab, killed by what killed her trees. She used to tell Brigid that she took her breath away, but it wasn't Brigid that caused her asphyxiation in the end. 

Julie wouldn't get a proper burial in the end and that just wasn't right in Brigid's mind. To Brigid Julie deserved the whole damn world on a string and what she got was shit in the end. Julie's accomplishments weren't fully complete until she died, she wasn't particularly acclaimed or social, and Brigid knew she'd crushed Julie's heart and buried whatever it was they had six feet under. Brigid had never felt so guilty, her eyes felt wet and her chest felt tight. Julie's death was so frivolous and unneeded. Brigid had to sit down, grabbing her desk tightly with shaking hands. 

"Mama Tenenbaum?" One of her little ones asked in great concern, tugging on the hem of her dress. 

"Ja mein kind?" The child blinked her eyes in confusion and Brigid shook her head with a solemn smile. She barely even realized she was speaking German, this terror and guilt had overtaken her. "Yes my child?" 

"Are you okay?" No, no of course not. Brigid felt her heart had shattered, she'd forgotten she ever had one but now it ached so deeply she couldn't ignore it anymore. 

"I shall be." She gave the girl a pat on the head. "Now go along and play." The girl smiled at her, running off to play hopscotch with the others. Brigid brushed the hair out of her face, rubbing her eyes gently. If only she could go to Arcadia and give Julie a proper goodbye, a proper apology, a proper burial. A burial in a cemetery, a proper cemetery where the sun would shine upon her grave and topside trees would cast their shades upon it. That's what would be right for Julie, this dank tomb of Rapture wasn't right, Julie deserved so much more. Brigid only wished she had discovered that years ago.

**Author's Note:**

> I was a lil tipsy when I wrote this so don't be too judgmental. 
> 
> My tumblr is barefootcosplayer


End file.
